Spotlight remains on O-line

CLEMSON - While the talk of the camp has been the quarterback situation, depth along the offensive line has been one of the more pressing concerns for offensive coordinator Billy Napier.

"If you don't execute that basic fundamental of football, you don't stand a chance," he said.

"We're a bit think up front in that second group," he said.

Right tackle remains a question as Cory Lambert and Landon Walker continue to battle for the starting role. Everything else is "locked in stone" as competition for playing time at right tackle continues.

"We've got a group of returning starters up there that once we hone and pick those seven or eight guys that are going to play up front, I feel like we're going to be able to knock people around and be a physical front," Napier said.

Though he feels good with those seven or eight guys, Napier wishes there were a few more.

"That's all you need, seven or eight, but you'd like to have nine or 10, barring an injury here and there," he said.
The ability is there with the seven or eight. When mistakes are made on the offensive line, they're a lot more glaring. Unlike the defense, he said, mistakes at the point of attack are hard to cover up.

"If one guy breaks down, it's a bad play," Napier said after Saturday's scrimmage. "The message to our kids: learn your lesson from each possession…we'll talk about each possession. What went wrong and what went right, where do you overcome a little bit of adversity, what set us back, when we were successful show them we had consistent play."

With very few negative runs during the scrimmage, Napier was encouraged that the defense's good plays on the run calls still yielded two or three yard runs from CJ Spiller, Rendrick Taylor and Jamie Harper.

The play calling was focused more on work for the running game, not so much the passing. It was pretty bland, Coach Dabo Swinney said.

"We really wanted to see some of those guys up front," he said, "I think we ran the ball pretty well."

Extra-points
So far, the mistakes on offense during Clemson scrimmages have been correctable, according to Napier.

A fumble here and there, a false start and a delay of game penalty—the only one in five scrimmages, Napier said, including the spring game. Executing snaps in the red zone seemed to have stuck under Coach Dabo Swinney's skin after the scrimmage.